Subhuti asked: "How can the practitioner who wishes to help all beings find enlightenment awaken to the complete and perfect wisdom?"

The Buddha said: "This most subtle awakening comes about through moment-to-moment attentiveness� The practitioner awakens to perfect wisdom by becoming blissfully free from obsessions with habits, names, sense experiences, personal feelings, and with dread of dying and all the despair that goes with it."

--Prajnaparamita

Yesterday my music editor asked me to review two albums that were outside my bailiwick�an R&B record and a country record. I listened attentively to both and couldn�t believe how awful and unmemorable they were�and these are mega-selling artists who pretty much define their genres right now. (Well, the country one was a debut album, but it�s on Dreamworks).

The R&B record in particular was shockingly over-produced, the lyrics and melodies (written by teams of like 3, 4, and 5 people) so utterly banal. What makes this record a big seller and another record�not? What makes one R&B singer a huge sensation, respected by peers and public alike, and another singer just an also-ran? And with all that compression and pitch-correction on their vocals, how can you even tell who�s a great singer, and why would it matter?

OK, I realize that ranting about popular music is a big waste of time�I�m not actually ranting against so much as expressing my dumbfoundedness about a genre I have successfully avoided for years now.

Sex and the City is shooting outside my building today. Hi.

Now playing The Polyphonic Spree. Now this is good!